


At Least For Now

by polandspringz



Category: gen:LOCK (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Based on the Character Reveal Teasers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers for Season 1 Episode 6, Team as Family, Yaz's Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 20:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17967722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polandspringz/pseuds/polandspringz
Summary: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Doctor. I tried to ignore it- I was going to come tell you as soon as the mission was done- I didn’t want to bother you but they-”“Yasamin,”He said her name inthatway again and she felt his hands pulling lightly at her arm, trying to pull it away from her face so he could see the damage, his knuckles brushing against the black bruise swirling out from under her eye, “I’mthe one who is sorry.”Yasamin is shipped out from the MESA detainment center to meet the man who seems destined to become her savior from everything she has run from. Each time her world seems to crumble, he is there. The question is, how many times can she promise to be there to save him?





	At Least For Now

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this based off of the character reveal teaser trailers (specifically some scenes correlate with some reports displayed in teaser 4). I'm posting this less than 24 hours from when episode 7 will be airing, so this is all speculation and head canon.
> 
> Please Note: Whenever Yasamin's name is in italics _(Yasamin)_ , it is being pronounced as "Yaz-E-Man", as Dr. Weller sometimes does in the show. I decided to include this detail because someone on Tumblr explained that this pronunciation actually shows Dr. Weller thinks of Yaz as his own daughter. With that in mind, enjoy!

“Doctor?” Yasamin could hear the uncertainty in her own voice, the fear making her sound like a scared lost child. The man who had become like her father figure saw the worry creasing her brow, and cupped her cheek instinctually. She let herself lean into the warmth, shutting her eyes for a moment as his words rushed over her.

 

“Time to fly again, little bird,” He hushed, his rough hand, worn by years of engineering, somehow gingerly slid its touch off her face. She wished it would linger, that she could have a moment not consumed by war and its rushed pace so everything and everyone in her life wasn’t so fleeting.

 

“Look after your teammates,” he told her, and the universe seemed to be playing both kind and cruel, as it let time stop for a moment so he could press a kiss to her forehead, but instead of ease it sent waves of fear through her, as his lips trembled as they left her skin.

_Please don’t let it be the last,_ she prayed as he stepped away from her.

 

* * *

 

 

“Miss Madrani! It is wonderful to finally meet you!” The hatch of the airship hissed as it continued to lift up, the shadowed gray steel color that she had known for hours pulling away to reveal the aquamarine color of the sky above the Pacific coast. The ramp, her pathway out of here revealed itself, and she was tempted to break out into a sprint, to chase after that morning sky and just rush towards the ocean, which she could see on the horizon line, a deep foaming bue that took her breath away. The guards stepped beside her, heavy footfalls falling in step with the armed androids they had sent as back up. The cuffs on her wrists jostled. She remembered her place. A hand shoved her itself between her shoulder blades. She started walking.

 

“Now, I’m sure one of the fine gentlemen escorting you told you already,” the British voice continued on babbling, “But we have decided to release you because you are one of the very few people in the world able to pilot this brand new technology!” She kept her eyes on the ground, watching as it changed over from the sharp angled silver to the flat, soft brown dirt of the earth. Eventually, she was going to keep walking on autopilot, but the rough hand of one of the guards coiled around her bicep, and yanked her back. She snarled, instincts readying a fool proof plan of planting her feet into the ground, twisting around and slugging them with both bound wrists. They had decided to go old fashion in their way of binding her, so the metal and chain would like bruise or blister the man quickly enough to let her get a head start. She grit her teeth and pressed her the heels of her boots into the dirt-

 

“Ahem, now, gentlemen, I believe the Colonel did release her into _my_ custody, so if you would so kindly return to your ship-”

 

The voice was terse, a low bitterness in his words as he stepped forward, his loafers stopping just within her vision. The two guards said something, likely about not trusting her, _a spy, a danger,_ and the hands tightened around her. She was still wholly ready to hit the both of them, when-

 

“She’s free. Let go of her, _now.”_

The hands slowly peeled themselves off of her, and the men stepped away. One of them reached out to hand the man in front of her the key to her cuffs. He bid them a thank you, and then let them walk back to the ramp and up into their ship. Hands came into her vision and then warmth was pressing into her wrists as he unlocked the metal, removing them before he gave the red rings around her wrists a gentle squeeze.

 

“You’ve been through a lot. Let us get you settled in first. We can begin training tomorrow.” He said, and Yasamin let herself look up and gaze upon the face of an old man. For his age and the times, he didn’t appear to be withered, but he wasn’t hardened by the war either. His silver hair fell in large wavy tuffs on either side of his face, a neatly trimmed beard that almost hid the smile lines of his face, and blue eyes that stared down with a strange sort of endearment at her. With a flourish of hands, he let go of her and spun around, walking off.

 

“Now, come with me! I will show you where you will be sleeping.”

 

* * *

 

 

The other scientists around the lab kept giving her strange looks. It was warranted, she knew that, but if she wasn’t near Dr. Weller, she felt like one of them was going to jump her at any second. She knew she could take them, and they likely wouldn’t want to hurt one of the two gen:LOCK candidates in existence, let alone kill one, but it still was easier to walk in the Doctor’s shadow, eyes to the ground.

 

The Doctor was a tall man, at least compared to her. It was easy to hide behind him, but that didn’t mean Yasamin _liked_ doing it. She knew their remarks held some validity, that the stigma would remain on her back like an ugly scar even if she ripped the brand out herself. She silently grit her teeth and clenched her fists as she heard their whispers.

 

_“She’s the **Union** pilot.”_

_“The **Union** soldier.”_

_“I told Dr. Weller he should increase security. With that **Union** girl here-”_

_“Did we really have to take her for the program? I know she’s gen:LOCK compatible, but she’s from the **Union-”**_

_“She’ll probably kill us all when we are asleep.”_

_“I wanted to install a tracking device-”_

_“I asked for permission to send guards with her-”_

_“Should she be locked up? Or at least cuffed-”_

_“She should just die.”_

“Miss Madrani,” Dr. Weller stopped short, but he was like a solid wall when Yasamin bumped into him. She hadn’t noticed she had been walking so fast.

 

“Sorry, Doctor.”

 

“I should be the one apologizing, for my colleagues. They have only seen the aftereffects of what the Union has brought, and not even first hand.” He turned around, eyes meeting hers with a sort of resolute kindness that made her stand up straight, even as she felt the burn of his words coming on. _He’s going to say it too,_ she thought, _You expected this, you’ve heard it before. They’re not wrong, afterall, you knew it when you-_

“They are severely misinformed. I hope you do not think badly of them for their ignorance.”

 

She was startled, “It’s not the first time I’ve heard it.” The confession was quiet and she found herself looking away, squeezing her arm as she tried to hide all the memories on her face. She was not in the detention center that long, but she had checked in the bathroom when she got here, the bruises were long since gone- There was nothing on her that should cause him to evoke pity-

 

“And their rudeness,” he glared at a few of the engineers and scientists who were standing in the halls, tone controlled but once again, like when he had addressed the guards, very obviously terse and threatening. He leaned close to her, speaking low so only she could hear, “If anything happens, tell me. You have permission to retaliate if they try anything physical, but otherwise, please come speak to me first.”

 

She smiled, catching the eye of one of the security guards who had approached her outside her room and in the dining hall. She had hesitated before, too scared of being sent back, _now,_ she thought, _now I can give them payback._

He followed her gaze, “Have they been giving you trouble?”

 

“I’ll be able to handle it, _now,_ but thank you,” She told him, and he must have caught the twinkle in her eye, because he smiled back. This time it was sincere and a bit amused,

 

“I’ll trust your judgement, Miss Madrani.”

 

* * *

 

“Yasamin,” She told him, “You can call me Yasamin.”

 

Her arms were crossed as she stood in front of Chase’s tank. It was hardly their first meeting, but after their first real mission together, it seemed a proper conversation was overdue. Dr. Weller was seated in his chair by his desk, and Caliban was milling about, and Chase was… Chase was in his tank like always, and Yasamin was resolutely glaring him down in the middle of an argument about his actions during their sudden combat experience together. That is, until Chase had called her “Miss Madrani.”

 

“Really? You sure it’s alright?” He asked, quirking an eyebrow.

 

“Yes. The _both_ of you may call me Yasamin.” She glanced over her shoulder at Dr. Weller, who was sitting back in his chair, one leg folded over the other.

 

“Well, I am sorry that you had to fight so early on, Yasamin, but you certainly performed masterfully! Thank you for aiding Julian, the last mission we sent him on had some complications, so it was reassuring to have someone else out there to assist.”

 

“Complications?” She raised a brow, “Isn’t this supposed to be leading technology for the Polity?”

 

“Yes, but we are the Experimental Science Unit, and gen:LOCK is still in its experimental stage. My original intent for this program had nothing to do with war, so the request to militarize it has caused us to leave much of it to be developed along the way, things to be fixed on a trial by error basis.”

 

“It’s only been about a year since I started, Yaz, and the first few months was me getting to this stage.” He gestured with his one hand towards his body inside the tank. She grimaced, understanding the sensitive topic she had touched upon.

 

“I see. And, its _Yasamin,”_ She corrected, but smirked when she saw his expression, “For now.”

 

“But Doc, why was the Union so aggressive towards us? Have they figured out what’s going on with the gL tech?”

 

“It unlikely,” He folded his hands, leaning back, “We have had our security, both in manpower and cyber tripled since that failure, upon the Colonel’s request. They may be curious about what you both _are,_ but I doubt they have put the pieces together yet.

 

“However, I did not want them to know about our second pilot so soon- so I will be alerting Colonel Marin that I do not wish to either of you out until you are both fully trained and the updates I have been working on are sorted out.”

 

“Come on, Doc, I’m gonna get stir crazy in here,” Chase joked, and Yasamin thought she saw something flash across his eyes, but the gaze was level behind his glasses as he leaned forward on her knees.

 

“You have your hologram, and you will be in charge of bringing Yasamin up to speed. We got lucky today, but she still has _much_ to learn.”

 

Yasamin bit her lip as she stared at the ground. Her arms fell to her sides but didn’t swing, she seemed unnerved but didn’t fidget. It was in her nature, in her _training._ She felt both pairs of eyes heavy on her, boring heavy down as she tried not to flinch or let anything show.

 

She had done well on the mission, and it was the first mission, for the Union’s- for the _Polity’s_ sake, and she had more than proved herself to be adept at combat. So what if she had more to learn? They wouldn’t get rid of her that quickly, she was the only other candidate for the program found! Even if she had made some mistakes, or was falling behind, she had only been here for a month, there was no way they expected her to be perfect by then- and even then, if it really didn’t work out, she would just get sent back to the detainment center, and things weren’t so bad there, really. There were worse places she could go, and since she knew about gen:LOCK, there was no way they would be sending her back _there._

_Right?_

A hand clapped over her shoulder, and she jolted, jumping a foot in the air just as the touch began to seep into her skin. It pulled back when she reacted, and belatedly, she found herself more angry with herself for overreacting as cold settled in its place. Dr. Weller was beside her, his expression now softened even as his eyes seemed hurt. Anxiety began to weave itself into her chest, she had done something _wrong._ She had offended him. What if that was enough to get her shipped back? She twisted around, wanting to stumble towards the touch, to see if she could take his hand and slap it back on like a bandaid and maybe that would temporarily stall things, hold together the little false sense of security she had allowed herself to so weakly slip into. She knew it was undeniable, if she failed here, they would send her back. She had heard everyone say it. The detainment center was too good for someone like her, death or torture were too merciful. But, if she did anything wrong, sending her _back_ would be easy punishment, an easy way to discard her while telling her that she was really worth nothing anymore. And while she knew it to be true, she never thought she would get so deluded here that she would feel so scared to return to-

 

“Yes, much to learn,” his voice seemed disjointed, as if he intended to say the words more happily, but they had turned stale with the conversation when she broke away from him. _I screwed up,_ she panicked, but he continued, “but for now, you should rest. It appears you are quite shaken up, so it would be good to give you a day-off. The Colonel may complain, but it would be bad if we rushed things anymore.”

 

“Me too, Doc?” Julian quipped.

 

“You’ve been working hard for the past few weeks. Some sleep might do you some good.”

 

“Or a game of Siege?” He smiled, and Yasamin almost expected his hologram to materialize just to flash her some finger guns, but he decidedly stayed inside the tank for now. She tried not to flinch when the hand curled over her shoulder again in a lighter, more reassuring pat.

 

“Get some rest, Yasamin. I’ll be in my lab if you need anything.”

 

She left for her room, unable to sleep as her mind continued to race.

 

_How long would this last?_ She sighed, and turned over, accepting another fit full night of thoughts.

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s the defector.”

 

Yasamin stared at her food in the mess hall. It was about two months into her stay at the ESU, and it had become normal for him to join her for meals, even if he himself wasn’t eating anything. He had been sent out on a mission, though, and Yasamin was recovering from her armor being almost blown off in an explosion. There was no bruising on her skin, but the fleeting, flashing sensations of phantom pains crackled along her skin as she moved her fork. Three shadows surrounded her, smug grins plastered on their faces as they watched her struggle.

 

“Did you really think you would be accepted over here?” One of them asked. They were all security guards, newer ones who had been staffed since her arrival. Built with broad shoulders and bodies honed through boot camp, she had no doubt that _she_ could take them and win, but she didn’t wish to start any trouble.

 

“She probably got thrown out.”

 

That being said, she had been getting harassed by these three since she arrived.

 

Dr. Weller had given her permission to take care of anyone who bothered her, but besides tripping her in the morning, losing a few personal items from her room, and the occasional shove to the ground, she saw no reason to needlessly attack them. Sure, they pissed her off, but she knew any physical altercation would only result in more problems for the Doctor, more complaints from the Colonel, more questioning about what _she was doing here._

When they cornered her during the times Chase was absent, she had developed a habit of going to the pods to get some extra training in, something that always frightened the engineers on standby. Sometimes she would visit Dr. Weller if Chase had something else to do after hanging out with her, but when Chase was explicitly out on a mission, she knew better than to disturb the Doctor when he was monitoring the man in battle.

 

So, enduring the insults and derogatory names it went.

 

“How did you even become a pilot anyway?” One of them kicked the table just as she managed to lift the spoon to her mouth, the metal banged and sent the utensil falling onto the plate while she clutched her arm, rattled by the now real life bruise that was forming, “Hey, answer me.”

 

She simply glared at them, moving to eat again. A hand slammed next to her tray and the spoon fell again.

 

“I said, _answer me._ ”

 

She sighed, shutting her eyes for a moment before she scooped up the tray and moved to walk away. Two bodies cut in front of her, pushing her back towards the table. She set the tray down to the side of her and crossed her arms, leaning back and trying to keep her voice steady.

 

“Shouldn’t the Polity be happy that people are turning away from the Union? There are more people fighting on their side then.”

 

The three men just looked at her, expressions annoyed as they seemed to debate their next move. One pair of eyes was roaming her over before a sinister smile stretched over his face, and staring above her, he marched over, hand coming towards her face.

 

“I see now. Your hair… The Union would never allow-”

 

_“How do you know that?”_

Time froze as Yasamin grabbed his wrist, and the two of them were inches apart, breaths being held as Yasamin felt her heart stop as the man schooled himself before letting that smirk appear on his face again.

**_No,_** was all she could think, the horrifying realization gripping her and taking over her mind, eradicating all of her training as her scalp was grabbed and her face was slammed into a knee. She didn’t even have time to groan in pain because the two others rushed forward, and then there was a foot in her stomach, a fist across her jaw. Bruises blossomed across her abdomen, and her body spasmed as if each hit was a bullet striking her. She could hear commotion around her, noise from the others in the mess hall likely watching the fight. She heard a few cheers erupt amongst the ringing in her ears as she took another hit to the face. Her lunch tray hit the floor as her body was smashed onto the metal of the table, and her mind became far too foggy as she felt her flesh pulsate and sting, and she struggled just to breathe, the belated sensation that was currently pinned down and being _choked_ only rushing over her _now_ as her lungs burned with a lack of oxygen.

 

Her head lulled to the side as she gasped, weakly kicking and flailing to put up a fight. Through her one open eye, she saw a flash of blue behind the bodies blocking her, and then heard a shout, and they were fleeing. The hands jumped off her like she was a hot iron, the footfalls as people cleared the mess hall were like giants as the noise amplified itself to echoes. Yasamin shut her eyes and threw her bad arm- her bad arm from earlier today- although did it even matter? Both of them were equally torn up and heavy now- over her face and tried to suck in air. She could hear Chase’s voice above her, trying to get her attention, and she felt the faint buzzing as his hologram brushed over her, trying, and _failing,_ to touch or provide some comfort.

 

She laid there for a few minutes, Chase eventually going quiet when he realized he could do nothing, and then, there was the fast pitter-patter of someone else’s footfalls coming down the aisle of tables.

 

“What happened-” The heavily accented voice exclaimed before she heard a gasp and then a tongue click with disapproval, and all Yasamin could think was, _no. No, please, I am can do better- I didn’t start this, I tried to stop it- I tried to do what you said-_

_“Yasamin,”_ And her mind tried not to linger on the way he said her name, the way he said it more like _Yaz-e-man_ and he likely had no idea the implications of that, but soon a sob was escaping her mouth and her chest was shaking as she coughed and sputtered out words she had buried down and her ribs rattled and her heart seemed to be trying to burst-

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Doctor. I tried to ignore it- I was going to come tell you as soon as the mission was done- I didn’t want to bother you but they-”

 

_“Yasamin,”_ He said her name in _that_ way again and she felt his hands pulling lightly at her arm, trying to pull it away from her face so he could see the damage, his knuckles brushing against the black bruise swirling out from under her eye, “ _I’m_ the one who is sorry.”

 

He helped her sit up, and fished through his pocket for a tissue while he whispered to Chase to call Caliban and get one of the medics they had on staff to prepare the Re-Gen. He was sitting on the table by her feet, but he leaned over and rubbed her back, pulling back and patting her knee when he saw her crying quickening again.

 

“I’m sorry,” She choked out again, and then, softer, she allowed herself- _“Please don’t send me back.”_

If she hadn’t been looking away, she would’ve seen the shock dawn over him- the anger blossoming on him the same way her bruises had. Instead, she only felt the table shift as he stood up slowly, and only knew that she flinched when his shadow came to close to her again, and she sucked in more air, trying to steel her panic even though she know it was too late. He had seen her at her worst, seen her at her most vulnerable- and it was over. They knew she was too weak, too emotional, and maybe this was why she had to _fight her way_ in the Union to become a pilot. Maybe this was why she had to lie and cut her hair and keep secrets because the _Union was right- women aren’t suitable for anything other than-_

Hands brushed her shoulders but didn’t move towards her neck. Arms slid over her gingerly, but didn’t move to crush her or snap her. A weight pressed against her but didn’t crush her, and fingers came up the nape of her neck to press her head lightly against the rising and falling chest of the man who smelled far too much like rust and rubbing alcohol to be pleasant. Her hair was combed through in sections it had been knotted and yanked, and she could just see over his shoulder that Chase had phased out a few minutes ago, and it was the two of them alone.

 

“We will find out who did this to you, and they will have _hell_ to pay. I am sorry I gave them the benefit of the doubt and let it go this far. Their names, I will have sent to the Colonel tomorrow. They will be taken out of here and far away.”

 

She flinched at the words _far away,_ tightening in a fist on the back of his jacket. He pulled her closer, and hushed her again.

 

“You will be staying here, little bird. It’s not time for you to fly just yet.”

 

* * *

 

She didn’t mind staying in the Doctor’s shadow anymore.

 

She had healed up easily, black eyes and broken nose set and bones grew back the right way, but, even Chase and Dr. Weller seemed to agree it was better for her to hide in their shadows. Although Chase’s hologram form was, well, hollow, when the Doctor stepped away from her to speak to someone, and the eyes and words instantly flew to look and talk about _her,_ Chase was always there to step in front, providing her some shelter from the judgement.

 

Yasamin knew the faces of the men who had attacked her, she had seen them for days outside of her door before the incident, they were three tall, broad shouldered individuals, but she knew no names. Dr. Weller tried showing her the files of each staff member, but no face was coming up that he could match, or she simply refused to speak on the subject. She wasn’t quivering or shaking during these interviews, and she was fine when in training, and he knew from counseling with her that she didn’t feel any sort of worry about them retaliating against her. Physically, at least. She knew that much, and was ready to take them on if necessary. It was _why_ she felt she needed to take them out, kill them, silence them, as soon as possible which was what she kept silent.

 

Yasamin slipped into the lab during meals, ate in front of Chase’s tank when the Doctor wasn’t around, and at night she would stay up when he was working in the labs. He never slept, and he didn’t mind the company. He didn’t seem to think of her as a disruption, and it was safer for her own mind to be awake and in his welcoming presence than to be left alone in a sleepless fit while her brain tormented her with what would happen if any of those men _said something._

How did they know? They had to have been… But how did they get all the way out here? At all times, her mind was full of daunting questions that all came to the same startling conclusion. _What would happen to her if they told Weller?_ That panic was what gripped her for the week they spent trying to coax any details out of her. One day before training, Dr. Weller took her aside and told her point blankly:

 

“ _Yasamin,_ I want you to feel safe here. I want you to know that no matter what, I would not let the Colonel, or anyone, take you away from here. No matter what they said to you, no matter what they _tell me,_ I know the truth.”

 

He made sure to lean down and look her in the eyes, and it was hard not to shudder under his intense gaze, radiating with such compassion when he said her name _like that, and she really should correct him because he probably didn’t know what he was saying,_ and she tried to convince herself she _wasn’t_ that gullible, that she _wouldn’t get deluded_ but then-

 

“I will protect you from whatever you feel you aren’t strong enough to protect yourself from. But, I know _you are stronger than this,”_ and he patted her shoulder before walking off.

 

She felt something come over her, and in a surge of confidence, she reached out and grabbed his sleeve, stopping him.

 

“Doctor! I, uh…” Her eyes darted about before they settled on his shoes. She didn’t trust herself to meet his eyes again, not when such raw, and long-craved emotion could leave her speechless despite feeling so fulfilled and happy, “After training! I… I will take a look at the files again after training, and… I will tell you what they said to me.”

 

He smiled at her, and as she released the fabric she had pinched tightly between her fingers, he lifted his hand to wave her off.

 

“I’ll be waiting.” He told her, and she smiled, walking in the opposite direction towards the pods and the hanger, giving him a wave as well.

 

* * *

 

Everything went to hell.

 

In the middle of training, Chase and her were alerted that they needed to be transported to fight a battle that was growing desperate, which meant they had to load up their Holons and then download out, only to board the airship and wait for the time to reupload. The battle took some time to turn around, and being inside their Holons twice in one day meant their uptime was shortened, which became really troublesome when they kept getting swarmed by Union drones and bots with seemingly no end and had not made any real strides. Luckily, Yasamin and Chase were able to utilize a falling structure to their advantage and crush a few of their more persistent enemies in an explosion before just ruthlessly charging in and destroying the Union’s crawlers as quickly and efficiently as possible.

 

It wasn’t their most clean mission, but the job was done. When Yasamin hopped out of the pod in the airship and saw Chase waiting for her, she felt the relief and adrenaline coursing through her mixing together, making her more than ready to discuss with Weller the faces of the men who had-

 

“Yo, Yaz, you okay? You look a little pale.”

 

_What? What happened? Where did they- **Where did they go?**_

****

She stopped in front of Chase’s hologram, her hand clutching her head as her she almost fell forward in her daze, straight through Chase’s form. He moved to catch her, but she tripped towards the ground anyway.

 

“Woah, hey! Should I page the Doc?”

 

She caught herself on one of the consoles, but drew her other hand back up to shakily push back her hair. Her brow was now drenched in a cold sweat as she frantically tried to recall.

 

“Chase, I can’t remember… I knew their faces, but now they’re just… gone!”

 

“What? Whose faces?”

 

“The men who attacked me!”

 

Her face was turned away from him as she shut her eyes, already overstimulated from the battle and the letters and symbols on the console being no help to calm her racing mind. Strange, she wasn’t in the Holon but she felt the same sensation of whirring as if she was overclocking. She heard Chase’s hologram flicking in and out, disintegrating into hexagonal pixels as he teleported around, voice angrily raising as he tried to contact the ESU.

 

“Doc? Caliban, can you page Dr. Weller? We need him!”

 

_“Hello- Yasamin, Julian?”_ There was a crackly feed coming through the ship’s speakers, _“There have been some complications. You will not be coming back to the ESU right away.”_

“Doctor?”

 

“Doc? What’s going on? Yaz is freaking out we _need_ you.”

 

_“I’m sorry, I cannot leave right- What’s wrong with Yasamin?”_

“I don’t know, she got out of the pod and collapsed! She’s got amnesia or something!”

 

There was silence on the other end, save for the static that began to hiss as the man gathered his thoughts.

 

_“I’m sorry, I- I cannot come there right now. You need to trust me, I have to keep you up in the air for a little bit longer, it isn’t safe for you to land yet until we are assured that-”_

“Doctor, I am fine. Please, are _you_ okay? Did something go wrong, was there an attack?”

 

_“We are currently experiencing reports of a data breach. It came to my attention a bit too late, some files have been taken regarding the gen:LOCK program.”_

Chase and Yasamin held their breaths.

 

_“I do not yet know what they stole, but it is quite likely they were files on the two of you. I have to make sure that you two are not in any danger before you return. Yasamin, can you tell me how your feeling? Any nausea or pain? I will try to help the best I can from here.”_

There was rustling and some typing on the other end, and a mingle of voices in the background, and then they could hear a faint alarm going off. Yasamin took a deep breath, but went to lie, but then she saw Chase’s expression and decided against it.

 

“I am… a little confused, but am I not experiencing any sickness or pain. It is not from the battle, although I cannot say for certain. I cannot seem to remember the faces of the men who had attacked me.”

 

_“What?”_

She flinched and his tone. It wasn’t angry, but it undeniably stressed. She should have waited, she thought, even as her words continued to spill out slowly. Her speech was heavier than usual, she noted absentmindedly, maybe she should tell the Doctor about that too.

 

“I was going to tell you, and it’s all gone. It feels faded, like it happened years ago and I can’t reach back that far. I- I can’t even remember what they did to me exactly, Doctor. I know I- I was hurt, and I know that it happened when you were with Chase, but I can’t seem to remember who or what they were doing-!”

 

_“Chase,”_ He interrupted her when her voice broke near a sob, _“Get her to rest for now. I need a bit more time to make sure you are safe before you can return to the base.”_

Yasamin let herself slip down to crouch on the floor by the console, her head ducked as she felt insecurities she had just begun to bury rise up again. _We can’t return because Chase’s body might get intercepted. I can run away but he’s stuck unless we get him back._

 

_“However, I’m hesitant to trust even the pilots flying the ship with what Yasamin told me. They are under orders to circle around the airspace of the ESU before given the signal to land. If they start to stray for even second, Yasamin, you have my permission take over by any means necessary. I know you must be tired, but know that I am worried for the both of your safeties and I wish I could do more. Please, trust me.”_

“Will do, Doc,” Chase then stared at Yasamin for another moment, seeing if she had anything to add, and then closed the channel, “See ya soon.”

 

He lingered behind her for a bit longer, standing motionless and she covered her head and tried to clear her brain, searching once more the lost faces.

 

“I’ll be alright, I won’t let them steal you,” she tried to smile.

 

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” He crossed his arms before he returned to the tank, evaporating into blue light.

 

_That’s not what he’s worried about,_ she thought, and even though she was able to read the truth in those lines, she felt herself still grasping for it. It was slipping away like the rest of her memories, the notion that they actually cared about her and didn’t just see her as a means to an end.

 

* * *

 

 

Yasamin didn’t have to take over the plane, which worked out for the best, as when they landed she was even more disoriented. Dr. Weller met her as she was coming down the ramp, walking up it halfway to help lead her down as Chase walked beside her. Caliban went inside to retrieve the tank, and the engineers went about transporting the Holons back to the hanger. After a brief conversation, Chase phased out, and Dr. Weller accompanied Yasamin to back to the main lab to examine her.

 

“What did they steal, Doctor?” She asked nervously. She was laying inside one of the pods, but she wasn’t fully loading herself into the cyberbrain yet. He was sitting beside her, looking at the displays with a disgruntled expression.

 

“From you? Not much besides the faces of the individuals responsible, it seems. They didn’t have full access to the system, that’s why everything might seem choppy. They were grasping at straws to clear up this memory, it seems. It must have been done near the end of the battle, when you were downloading back, because otherwise they might have done much more damage. _In the past, it was possible for us to have a copy of this file somewhere, but we stopped doing that before you arrived,”_ He mumbled that last part, and she would have cared more about it had her focus not been elsewhere.

 

“No, I mean, the data. The important things,” She spoke matter-of-factly, her accent dragging out the words a little bit, giving “important” more emphasis then she meant to. She did not miss the way Dr. Weller’s face contorted in disapproval at the insinuation.

 

“We managed to block worst of it, but they got away with your and Chase’s files, information about some of the more recent updates to gen:LOCK, the forced download when uptime is reached, some of the plans and designs for future modifications. All of the older files were saved though thanks to how far buried they are in the system. However, the timing between the hacking with you and the hacking of our system is too coincidental. I’m starting to think,” he typed a little quicker and a new display opened up on the screen, “You said you didn’t recognize anyone in the security guard files I showed you?”

 

“No.”

 

“I had asked the folks over in surveillance to examine the footage after we got you patched up, but they hadn’t been able to find anything. They said there weren’t any clear details, or something that I realize now, _I shouldn’t have glossed over._ I’m wondering if… Yes, their missing footage, and some files from the employee database are gone too!”

 

She sat up, the pod opening to allow her to swing her legs over the edge, “Was there another breach we didn’t know about?”

 

“No, I’m just a fool. They were security guards who attacked you, they have the code to these things, of course they are going to go ahead and clear out any evidence. They must have removed the footage before their files though, or else they would have deleted their access code. Or, did they simply turn off the cameras during those times?”

 

Yasamin searched her memory. It wasn’t the first instance she had been harassed by those guards, where else did she have their faces stored? She rubbed her temples with frustration.

 

“I had a… prior altercation with them, before the fight. They liked to stand outside my room and say things when I was leaving. But, I still can’t think of them having any real noticeable details.”

 

Dr. Weller’s hand came to rest on her as he eased her back, “Lay down again, I want to run some more tests, check some more memories, if you don’t mind.”

 

She felt a wave of exhaustion crash over her as the pod closed overtop, and without much of a fight, she let herself fall into the darkness, the computer’s :LOCK affirmation a faint flash of blue light to her fading conscious.

 

* * *

 

She awoke in her own bed in the middle of the next day, a familiar face standing over her as she was drowned in another layer of blankets.

 

“We normally would use the Re-Gen, but it’s not good to use so rapidly. It’s only been about a few weeks since we healed up your injuries, and if we need to use it on you after something terribly wrong, I think it’s in your own best interest if we let your body recover the old fashioned way.”

 

Sleepless nights and lack of appetite caught up with a person. It didn’t surprise her that she would come down with a fever, but the fact that the Doctor decided to stay with her the entire time did.

 

“I can take care of myself. You and Chase need to speak with the Colonel about the breach and the possible spies.”

 

“Chase was right, you know,” He ignored her, setting down a cup of tea he had prepared, “Back in the airship, I should’ve been there.”

 

She sat up against her pillow, taking the cup from the table next to her, “It wasn’t that important.”

 

“It _is_ though, _Yasamin. You are_ important, to me especially. And not just because you are gen:LOCK compatible,” He gestured his hand in the air, “I want you to know that I worry about Chase and you.”

 

She thought about the way he said her name again, but brushed it off on his accent. He didn’t know any better, and besides, it wasn’t like he _always_ said it that way. Frequently, yes, but it was an honest misunderstanding. She shrugged and took a sip of the tea.

 

She almost choked when she recognized the flavor.

 

_“Gol Gav Zaban…”_ She whispered, a hand coming up to her mouth. Tears filled her eyes as she felt the blankets over her bristle against her skin, the weight similar to the thick blanket that used to be tossed over her in a simpler time, back when the sun would shine through the window next to her bed and her mother would stand in front of her in the doorway, a tea cup prepared for her to drink slowly in order to heal her sore throat. Dr. Weller helped steady the cup in her hand, watching fondly as she covered her mouth and tried to suppress her hiccuping gasps.

 

“I know you’ve been through a lot, but it’s like a told you- I want you to feel safe here. I want you to be happy. I never wanted my technology to be used in this way, but it is, and I had to accept it. But, I like to think that it’s doing _something good._ Afterall, if we hadn’t begun the search for gen:LOCK candidates, I might have never found you.”

 

He pulled his hand away, and she cupped the tea and took another sip of it, the sweetness warming her throat as she tried to settle her tears.

 

“You knew, didn’t you?” She said, smiling and finding her voice a bit more, “The way you’ve been saying my name.”

 

“I do research _my kids_ before they arrive. You didn’t seem to object to it, so I thought it was fine.”

 

She swallowed, and something seemed to fluctuate inside her chest, a feeling she had long since buried back when she had fought her way through the academy, fought her way through disguises and body language and horrifying realizations about how she had been _lied to-_ a feeling she had buried underneath her need to _escape, be safe, and die if that’s what it meant._ She held the tea close to her lips and breathed in the scent, shutting her eyes for a moment in contentment.

 

“You may call me that. I don’t mind it, but I don’t really want Chase or anyone else calling me it, because it wouldn’t make sense.”

 

“I understand. Although, I think Julian is intent on making Yaz stick.”

 

_“That,_ I still object to.” She said, and they both laughed, and she let herself relax, really relax, for the first time in years.

 

* * *

 

 

She was an obvious suspect for the data breach. The halls and corridors were more vicious now, scientists who had merely glared or whispered before now pushed past her, came up to confront her with wary looks and judgemental gazes, insults ready for whenever she was alone. Questions about her intentions, if she knew about gen:LOCK before coming here, and why she arrived at the detainment center. Was she really even gen:LOCK compatible? Or was it all a ploy to get sent here and tear apart Dr. Weller’s dreams?

She took the latter questions with a grain of salt, something that would have previously caused her insecurities to flare up red hot if there was an infrared scanner for those sorts of things. She _knew,_ she belonged here, that the Doctor wanted her to be here. They had even begun to have set times to drink tea together and talk, with the Doctor always surprising her with an Iranian brew he had managed to scrounge up from deep within her childhood. On days when she had to go on a mission and she missed one of them, he would welcome her back with a kettle ready for her to enjoy while they debriefed. Chase never joined them during these times, not that he wasn’t welcome, but he recognized that when Yaz’s shoulders slumped and the Doctor would swoop in to usher her into his office, that it was better that she open her heart to him before letting another person in.

 

During all this, she became a suspect on even the Colonel‘s radar, for a short while. Dr. Weller shut that down the moment it began, as it was during one of their breaks together when the Colonel called the ESU and began to call the decision to transfer Yasamin a-

 

“-mistake. That Union spy should have never left the MESA. She has hardly shown any progress and now a data breach? Weller, you need to wake up and realize-”

 

“Colonel Marin, what you think of progress and what I think of progress are two different things. We must examine each gen:LOCK candidate on a case by case basis in this early stage, as each of them have their own needs for nurturing in the program. Miss Madrani has been an excellent pilot, being an important ally in situations where Chase would have been lost to the Union, _again.”_

The way he said that last word made her decide to bury any thoughts and questions to the grave with her. It was clear that was something he would never discuss with her.

 

“Additionally, I already had evidence to support the fact that it may have very well been the extra security you _ordered_ to be sent in the ones who instigated this breach, as files and footage have gone missing not only in our systems, but in Miss Madrani’s brain as well. I would like to request the removal of the new officers you deployed to our lab.”

 

“I will not allow that, especially after a breach like this. We need to keep you and Chase safe, Doctor. The gen:LOCK technology is too valuable.”

 

_“Both of my kids are valuable!”_ He shouted and slammed a hand down on the nearest console, “Please, Colonel, I ask of you to review the information in the report I have sent you. I want these men out of my lab _soon,_ and I want them away from Miss Madrani and Chase _now._ ”

 

There was some more muttered conversations as Dr. Weller leaned over the monitor, too quiet for Yasamin to hear. Finally, the line went dead, and the screen shrunk down to vanish away. The Doctor stayed very still, hunched over with his head bowed wordlessly.

 

She hated how it looked like he was hanging his head in shame.

 

* * *

 

 

Colonel Marin did not acknowledge Dr. Weller’s report. Things flared up in the east, with the Union making a new effort to push the holding line out of Pennsylvania and into Ohio, that meant more requests for the gen:LOCK team to go fighting inside the cities to take back bases and areas that had been lost to new Union troops. Yasamin found herself living less in her room and more in her pod on a ship over the middle of the United States, floating around in the air for odd hours as she worked twice as hard now to prove herself to the Colonel with successes. Dr. Weller, he too was distracted as each time the Holons returned, their armor was in shambles, which meant late nights redesigning, printing, and building. On the off-chance she was home at the ESU every few nights, she would join him, bringing in a pot of tea she brewed for him to try until he shooed her off to bed.

 

She would always linger around the corner in the hallway after leaving, something pulling her back to the heart of the lab to make sure he was alright. She had never seen him sleep, but eventually her own exhaustion outweighed her worry and she went to bed.

 

It wasn’t until Chase had a relapse did she begin to insist on staying up later with him.

 

The universe seemed to determine to rain misfortune down upon them all at once, so first went Chase, one of his life-support machines malfunctioning and sending him quite literally into a minute of lifelessness until she and Dr. Weller arrived to find Caliban having launched into his protocol quite aggressively and was attempting to restore Chase. Yasamin had never seen the Doctor move so fast when getting the alert, and with a small pang she noted, he was not even that fast when she was first attacked in the mess hall.

 

She was to solo on missions for a while, and when she came back now, she knew better than to disturb him when she saw him working in the lab after hours.

 

Instead, she crept in through the other entrance, going over to visit Chase’s tank where she would spread her fingers across the new glass and inquire about how he was feeling, and he would joke about the circles under her eyes and how it felt flying solo.

 

It wasn’t her eyes that she was concerned with though, and those conversations were often shallow on both of their ends, eyes never really meeting. They both looked to opposite corners of the room, a strange, mutual shame shared between them as they heard faint whizzing and muttering of the “mad scientist”. The question she never seemed able to voice to her senior in the program became the heaviest weight on her shoulders during these months.

 

What could she do?

 

She found her answer one night when the tinkering and hammering noises stopped abruptly and there was a crash and clunk from over where the Doctor sat, hidden behind the various consoles and machinery pieces that were piled up.

 

Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt, but Yasamin wasn’t sure if this was better or worse. He was unconscious, more aptly put, he was asleep on his desk, the noise coming from the gadget and tool set he had dropped from his hand when he was in the middle of working.

 

Chase started to pixelate next to her and her eyes widened when she heard a whisper escape the Doctor.

 

“Wait!” She jumped in front of the hologram, holding her hands up to the other a bit spastically, “He’s fine, he just passed out. I’ll take care of him.”

 

Chase looked past her warily, an eyebrow raised, “You sure? Doc never sleeps.”

 

“I’m aware.”

 

“Which means he must be really exhausted this time around. Probably my fault too.” His voice carried the same inflection it always did when he said a knowing or amused statement, but Yasamin could hear the hurt layered underneath it.

 

“I will take Dr. Weller back to his room. Besides, you shouldn’t even be using your hologram form yet. G-get back in the tank!” She heard a faint snore come from the Doctor and jumped, worried he would start talking again.

 

“Alright Yaz, I get ya. But, you might want to ask Caliban to help you carry him.”

 

“I will ask Caliban if I need help getting you back in the tank, now, go.” She gestured through Chase’s form, which earned her a chuckle and eventually him dissipating. It was just in time too, because she heard another mumble escape him.

 

_“Julian… I didn’t mean to…”_

 

Left alone on this side of the lab, Yasamin tried to ignore the words spilling from his mouth as she awkwardly maneuvered around his hunched over form. She picked up the fallen objects and gently set them on the desk, noting with some disdain that the gadget had been dented by the fall, before she went about figuring out how to pick the scientist up. She rolled the chair back and then tilted him backwards so he was now slumped more upright, and then turned him all the way around so she could grab him around the waist and hoist him over her shoulder.

 

_“I’m sorry… I’m… Come back to us… please….”_

She got a few steps towards the door when she realized it might be for the best to bring Caliban with her, as no one should have been up at this hour, but any security guards milling the corridors might not take kindly to seeing her “kidnapping” the most important brain in the Polity. She called for him before setting out towards the Doctor’s room.

 

“Caliban, accompany me.”

 

In the ESU, there was the main lab, which served as the home for Chase’s tank, on the upper level, with the Doctor’s personal, more office-like lab being located a few doors down. The dorms, however, were in another building on the base, so she would need to cross through some of the more guarded areas to reach it. She suddenly realized she didn’t know if the Doctor even slept in the dorms with everyone else.

 

“Caliban, do you know where Dr. Weller’s room is?”

 

The lights in his face blinked twice, and the robot was off, leading the way to the upstairs bridge connecting the buildings. He automatically scanned through the doors, freeing her from having to fish around for her or the Doctor’s keycard or having to crouch down for a retina scan. She was pretty sure either way her card would get rejected, having noticed as of late whoever was still hiding out in the corrupt security team was limiting her mobility in the base at night.

 

Which made it so odd when she found the bridge completely unattended. Since she had arrived and since the Colonel had ordered the extra forces, there was always at least six guards stationed on the walkway at night, two by either door and then two facing outward on each side of the path. Instead, Caliban marched on through, and Yasamin was able to move without issue, although she did tilt her head up to admire the stars a bit.

 

She didn’t know much about astronomy, never having time to learn about such things during her time trying to get ahold of a plane or airship in the Union, but it was undeniable that it was winter when she gazed at the sky, a beautiful pitch black dotted with a few natural lights that weren’t chased out by the bright LEDs of the runway that stretched out towards the ocean. The sea breeze was only slightly colder at this time, but the wind still brushed against her cheeks. Compared to Iran, her new home in California always felt somewhat colder.

 

She lowered her head back down and found herself gazing at the horizon line. She didn’t get much time to admire it anymore, as she normally flew in cities where the bridge between the sky and the ground was staggering with man made stalagmites of steel and synthetic metals. Here, she could see the gray stretch of the runway, dark gray towards the edges, almost a yellowish white where the light hit it. She could see the clean, straight line drawn across where the black sky touched down into the water, a white moon up above being hidden by where the ground jutted up just so that the ocean was only a mere strip of navy. Had her vision been any worse, she might have missed it.

 

The wind picked up a bit, and she noted that Dr. Weller might risk catching a cold. Caliban had stopped, and was waiting in the threshold of the doorway to the dormitory. He had been a little bit different since the Chase incident, but she put that thought away for now. She walked forward, continuing on her mission to put the Doctor to bed.

 

* * *

 

The next time she found him, he was sprawled on the floor, only a few feet from the exit to the lab. Yasamin regarded Chase with questions, but the man was asleep in his tank. Caliban was milling about, but noticeably circling around Chase. She knew the way now, she decided she could at least do this on her own. Her muscles tired from the strain of the mission, having been confined in her pod for more hours than she had liked, she knelt down and scooped the Doctor up in her arms, and made her way towards his room.

 

Once again, he was mumbling.

 

_“Don’t… Don’t take….”_

Once again, there was no one on patrol. She needed to address this with the Doctor. It was concerning. Even though he took up all the space in her arms, she already was planning how to free one hand to fight back while she kept him shielded from bullets. She was still in her suit, so it would help provide her the enhanced motion if it really came down to it.

 

Still, she held the Doctor a little tighter, and closer to her, and when she laid him to rest in his bed that night, she lingered for a minute outside his door, eyeing the security camera with a sort of challenging glare.

 

* * *

 

She told him about the lack of security at night, explaining it away as she had discovered it when she returned from missions and was going to her room. The Doctor said he would alert Colonel Marin about it, and that hopefully, this will be the thing that gets her to listen to us. He was smiling when he said that, but he must have sensed her unease, because the next day, he presented her with a gun.

 

“What? Doctor, I-”

 

“It’s fine, _Yasamin._ You use one of these when your in your Holon, this is just a smaller, more organic one. I know you’ve used it before, so I _trust you_ with it.”

 

“But, what if-”

 

“It’s just a precaution. If you _do_ have to use it, I’ll cover for you, don’t worry.”

 

With that, the tall man gave her a pat on the head, one arm folded behind his back as he reached up. Then, he turned on his heel and walked off, a smile on his face.

 

She was getting taller, he thought. Not by much, but she was growing.

 

* * *

 

 

She was gone for three days in and out of fighting in areas of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, pulling out of the city battle to assist in the sudden assault in the more open-road, mountainous area to the south. Her brief moments of respite when she was waiting to recharge her uptime were spent huddled in the back of the airships, head tucked into her knees as she felt herself rattled beyond fixing at the things she was seeing the Union do. It had been more than a year and a half since the Polity lost New York, and Yasamin had only known the United States for even less time since then. But, seeing how ruthless the Union was at tearing through this side of the world, how quickly they encroached on and smashed up the lives of millions, she felt fear grip her at the thought of _just how long until they find me?_

Her mind was filled with too many thoughts and by the third day she got sloppy, so she received an update from the Colonel herself that she was to be sent back home. The woman’s voice, which she had only ever heard angrily arguing with Dr. Weller came to her in person this time, her hologram inside the ship. The woman stood tall in front of Yasamin, who had hidden herself between the pod and the wall, her gun ready in her hands as she stared blankly at the same greenish gray floor her human eyes had been seeing for over 72 hours.

 

_“You have done your job. You may return to the ESU. Thank you for your time.”_

Yasamin flinched at her last line. Her time? Did that mean…? Was she-?

 

The Colonel must have heard her thoughts, or seen it on her face, because she sighed and stepped forward, kneeling in front of her before reaching out and placing her hands, although they passed right through, overtop hers which clutched the gun. She was shaking, she hadn’t even noticed.

 

_“I should not have doubted Dr. Weller and you. I have received word that there was another breach,”_ Yasamin’s eyes widened, _“They managed to capture them before they got away with anything.”_

“What were they after?” She swallowed, fearing the worst.

 

_“gen:LOCK technology. Likely you, Chase, or some hard equipment. It wasn’t a cyberattack this time. Members of the security team made their move to escape the base with some items, but we quickly captured. That was all the Dr. Weller told me to tell you.”_

She stood back up, straightened and folding her arms behind her, _“Now, I am sending you home. I will not ask for you on missions for a while. You do better when you are with Chase anyway.”_

Yasamin merely nodded, sucking in another deep breath as she locked her eyes on a spot in the floor, her vision going hazy as she focused in and out. She only barely registered the sound of the call ending and the sight of the pixels fading away before the plane took a sharp dive and then a turn.

 

_Strange,_ she thought as she struggled to breathe. She was a top-of-her-class pilot. Why did her stomach feel sick then?

 

* * *

 

 

When the door to the ship lifted open again, Dr. Weller was not there to greet her. His smiling face and reassuring voice was not there to make her feel better, he was not there to catch her as she feel to her knees in exhaustion and dehydration. Instead, that was left to the pilots and engineers on the ship and by the hangar who saw her crumpled form and decided after some poking and prodding it would do no good to get chewed out by the Doctor later if she was found here, and agreed to drag her by the arms across the base to her room. They fished around in her jacket pocket and found her card and tossed her unceremoniously on the bed before they left. One of them returned later when she was halfway through her sleep to give her some water, whether they were under orders to or this was some sort of small apology since she wasn’t found among the Union spies in their ranks, she did not know, nor did she care. When she was lucid enough and her body demanded it, she finally took a sip of the lukewarm drink, and let her shaking hands still for a moment.

 

She found some dinner outside her room too, left by unknown sources. As much as her stomach gnawed at her, she moved past it, dumping it in the trash as she made her way to the main lab. She kept her hand along the wall as she walked, the other wrapped around her midsection to keep close to her gun. A sort of melancholy lull had fallen over the base since she had last been here, and now the lack of security in the halls was less of a haunting reminder of an imminent threat and more so a depressing and empty feeling. It felt like the Union had sucked the life out of the base, which left Yasamin wondering, did anyone die during the breach?

 

She knew the Doctor and Chase were okay, the Colonel had assured her of that, but what about any other of the other people on the base? How long did it take to catch them? Where they all security guards, armed with weapons that were meant to protect them, or were there some spies in the the science and engineering divisions as well? Yasamin hadn’t learned many of the names or faces on the base yet, as there was hardly a need to, but that didn’t mean she was immune to the rawness that had settled over. Every room she passed, it was late, but how many of them held a void in them? How many of those were people working against them, and how many of them were lives lost in the fight she had missed?

 

All of those thoughts left her when she entered the lab and had her breath taken away by the sight of Dr. Weller, crumpled in front of Chase’s tank.

 

She rushed forward, his name in her throat, ready to shout as she got ready to whip out her gun and fire. Was someone left in the base? Did they miss someone? Who did they have staged to attack after it was all over? She skidded to a stop when she saw Chase’s hologram flash in front of her for a brief moment before he returned inside the glass walls his body resided in.

 

“He’s okay, Yaz,” and his voice was so much more echoed now, there was a new sort of hollowness to it than just it reverberating inside the tank and underneath his oxygen mask. How much had he seen while she was gone? “He just fell passed out a few minutes ago. He asked Caliban to move him here when he felt himself going under, I think.”

 

“Did he fall asleep in his chair or did he collapse here?” She did not retire her gun, her shaky hands keeping a firm grip on it as she pointed it at the floor. Chase went to respond, but stopped when the Doctor stirred.

 

_“I’m sorry… Julian… Yasamin…”_

“He says that a lot, doesn’t he?”

 

“Y-yes. He has never said… my name though before.”

 

“You mean he only talks about me?”

 

“Normally, yes.”

 

Another beat of silence passed as they watched the Doctor. He had fallen to so he was kneeling in front of the tank, his face and one hand were pressed against it, although his head was bowed and his glasses were slipping off. He looked incredibly tired, skin sunken in an eyes pained.

 

“He doesn’t stop when you’re gone. I mean, he ‘never’ sleeps, but when you are gone on missions, I see him trying to power through things more. He tries to distract himself, do more. He ran himself ragged this time, especially when the Colonel told him how she had found you on the ship.”

 

“Why didn’t he meet me outside then?”

 

“Bad timing of it all. He had to deal with the clean up of it all after we stopped the breach.”

 

Yasamin bit her lip. She felt selfish now, bitterness at asking such an idiotic question. Stiffly, she tucked her gun back into its holster, making sure to put the safety on. The Doctor mumbled something again, and Chase merely nodded at the sad form of the fallen man.

 

“You should get him to bed,” he told her.

 

“I will.”

 

When she laid him on his bed that night, she found herself standing over him when her vision got blurry. His rambling in the halls had gone from simply saying their names to full sentences, asking where Chase was, if Chase still wanted to live, if he blamed him for everything. When she decided to go the extra step and remove his shoes and shrug him out of his brown jacket, that was when he finally whispered her name again.

 

_“Yasamin, don’t leave me.”_

She jumped back, dropping the blanket she had been trying to tuck around him. Her eyes flickered to his face, seeing he was still very much asleep, but his head lolled to the side as he began to enter an even more fitful dream.

 

_“I won’t let them take you… You’re in my care… I love you…”_ He blurted out, and Yasamin drew her hand to her mouth and she bit down on the skin to quiet her heaving breaths. She didn’t know how much longer she could stay in there before she let out a loud cry, so she removed his glasses from his face and then dashed out of there, leaning against the closed door before she sunk down it and covered her mouth, her stomach spazzing in hunger and pain as she sobbed silently into her hand, suffocating herself, but unwilling to let the Doctor hear lest he wake up.

 

* * *

 

When the Doctor saw her the mornings after she moved him, he never acknowledge it or asked how he woke up in his bed the next day. However, after last night, he seemed hesitant to approach Yasamin at all, and his eyes kept flicking up to her when they didn’t speak during their designated “tea time”.

 

To be fair, Yasamin did not know how to bring it up either. She was still swirling with emotions and thoughts after everything she heard him say, and if she was being honest with herself, she had been that way since she had met the Doctor, as her view on her own life was continuously upended by his own love and compassion towards her. As she sat there thinking on how to put all of her feelings into a simple “thank you”, the Doctor beat her to the conversation.

 

“Colonel Marin mentioned that you were quite shaken up on the ride back.”

 

“I… I saw some familiar faces when fighting, not in the Union soldiers, but in the civilians. They reminded me of myself,” She confessed, “It was… just a lot for three days. The bloodshed seemed unstoppable… I’ve never seen the Union fight like that.”

 

“You left before any real combat, didn’t you?”

 

She flinched, the tea cup rattling in her hand, “That’s not… entirely true. I…” She stopped and held her breath, mulling over the words that were thick like cotton in her mouth.

 

“You don’t have to tell me, you know.”

 

“No, I want to… It’s been long enough, and… I want to tell _someone,”_ she replaced the word _you_ at the last second, and it only made her more nervous. It had been almost a year together, and she trusted this man with her life, why couldn’t she even tell him this simple thing? She set the tea cup down with a sigh.

 

“I’m sure you know, I was raised in the Union. When I was a child, it was only a small movement, a philosophy that my parents attended meetings for. When I was twelve, they took over, but we were shielded from much of the chaos because we were a part of them. However, my mother and I quickly learned our place there, and I was… _unhappy_ to say the least. I would like to think that I entered their academy always under the pretense that I was going to escape, but the truth was, I know deep down I was attached the Union. They had already brainwashed me, and even though they wouldn’t let people like me fight, it was obvious I felt so dedicated to them that I was willing to break their law in order to help their cause. I knew I needed to be untouchable or else they would find out, and I forced my way into the top of my class, and after years, I was sent out to fight.”

 

Dr. Weller held his cup where it rested on his desk, tapping his finger against the surface as he listened attentively, his eyes shut as he hummed, waiting for her to continue. She rested her hands on her thighs, staring down at them as her fingers spread and closed, trying to clear her brain of her time spent in the dark, cockpit of that ship.

 

“I… When I was in the air, all I could hear was the static from the other pilots ship. We weren’t allowed to talk, we weren’t allowed to communicate. Even our orders were silent. When we bombed and fired on civilians, I waited for some order telling us to stop. They weren’t resisting at all… We were attacking defenseless people. I… I don’t know why, but I suddenly fell away. I dropped the drones I was carrying, and flew out of there. I had enough fuel for a few days, and I only vaguely had an idea of where I was going. I got lucky in that we were doing an attack on the United States, so it wasn’t too far before I crossed into Polity airspace. I… I just let myself fall, but they managed to usurp me before I crashed…”

 

There was something unspoken there, Dr. Weller could feel it and he took a pensive pose as he waited to see if she would say it herself. When she didn’t-

 

“Do you wish you died there?”

 

“I think… I think that’s what I wanted, yes.”

 

“Even now?”

 

“Now? No, I…” She looked up, eyes shining and her face the happiest he had ever seen it, “I was in a dark place then, when I realized how wrong the Union was, it felt like my world was crashing down around me. In the detainment center, I felt even more lost, wondering why I had been cursed to keep on going even while they tortured me, but now I am here. This is my home, my new world.”

 

Deep down, neither one of them were naive enough to think it would last.

 

* * *

 

 

Her and Chase were in their Holons when they heard the news.

 

“Dr. Weller has been taken hostage by the Union!”

 

Through her rage, Yasamin prayed a silent prayer of thanks that they both were in the training facility, and not shipped far away in some other state, where it would take god knows how long to make it back. Chase merely nodded at Yasamin, and they both charged the ESU.

 

Escaping her pod, Yasamin grabbed her gun and she guided Chase towards the lab where the most commotion was happening. Within a minute, she saw the stalemate between the security team, and the gun to the Doctor’s head.

  
She grimaced.

 

“This is the last time, you show your face here.” She said later, when Dr. Weller grabbed her and yanked her away from the immobile, bleeding out bodies she had shot, their faces ruptured under their masks from her incessant fire. She dropped the gun and with a quivering voice, but a determined and resolute glare, let him hug her and yank pull her away, “You will not take anything else away from me.”

 

* * *

 

Dr. Weller found her asleep on his floor two nights in a row. He didn’t say anything at first, but when tried to move her the second time, she almost took him out when she was jolted out of her nightmare, a hand stopping inches before in sealed around his throat.

 

“Bad dream?” He asked, helping her sit up even as she backed away from him, embarrassed.

 

“I promised to protect you, but… I keep fearing what would happen if they try to take you and I’m not here again.”

 

Her legs were weak so he picked her up and placed her on his bed. He helped bring the blankets up, and with wordless understanding, she let him remove her gun and place it on the nightstand. He leaned down and planted a kiss on her forehead, donning his brown jacket before he went to the doorway.

 

“Even if they did take me, I wouldn’t be worried. I have faith they wouldn’t do anything once I told them you were on the way.”

 

* * *

 

 

She was huddled in the back of the airship, Kazu and Cammie on either side as they tried to console her. Valentina had made her land it when they saw the state she was in. They were hiding between some mountains on the west coast. It was the only place big enough to conceal the ship housing the Holons, and it gave Chase a chance to mix in to his hologram.

 

She was crying. It had only been a few hours, but while they were up in the air, all the sensations caught up with her. The sight of the Anvil covered in nanotech, the sound of the Hammer firing into the Behemoth, the explosion from up and down the hall as the elevator descended under the ESU. It had been hours. He never went this long without reporting to her. He never went this long without talking to her. Ever since he had failed to see her step off the ship that day years ago, he had always forgone whatever he had to in order to be there when she got home to make sure she knew he was safe. He was always there, and then the times when he thought he absolutely might not be able to make it, he would give her a call, he would tell her, but in the end he would still be there.

 

His voice, his face, his smile- the kind eyes of _her father_.

 

Yasamin let out another choked sob as she realized his words had been all a lie. She had seen what he had been holding in his hand, had heard him diverting the soldiers attention away from the lift.

_“You’ll hear from me as soon as you can.”_

 

Cammie was hugging her, arms thrown around her shoulders as she tried to squeeze her with such ferocity. Kazu stood with a hand on her shoulder, eyes downcast as he leaned against the tank. Valentina stood near the window, watching the sky for any dangers that might fly overhead, but their eyes kept drifting over to the rest of the group.

 

And Chase- his hologram form was a few feet away towards the back of the ship. Yasamin knew how he felt towards the Doctor in the last moments, she had felt his frustration and anger across the mindscape throughout the entire battle, how his anger spiked when she offered for them to work together to fight the Union Holon, his thoughts consumed with _She **still trusts him.**_

 

Yasamin buried her head against her knees and shrugged the two pilots off, and they both slunk back, unsure and as likely as hurt as her, although they dared not to show it.

 

Chase’s hologram made no sound as it walked towards Yasamin, although he did let out a long sigh as he patted her head. His hand went right through, but the faint tingle of the pixels attempting to brush her hair back in a familiar way, the way he had seen _him_ do many times when he was truly proud of _his daughter,_ made her swallow her sobs and choke on them bitterly in her throat. Lips pressed into a thin line, Chase finally allowed himself to speak.

 

“We’ll get him back. As soon as we can. He’s waiting for us.”

 

 She didn’t want to go through anymore pain, but some part of her heart decided to entertain the idea _for._

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank everyone who beta-ed this for me, especially under such short notice! Specifically, Cora, Primal, Michelle, and everyone in the discord server who provided feedback for me! Thank you!


End file.
